Casanova would be bemused to discover that he is remembered today almost exclusively for his sex life. He was a fiercely proud intellectual and polymath, who worked at different times as a violinist, soldier, alchemist, faith-healer and even librarian, and originally trained to be a priest. Most of his life was spent far from his native Venice, engaged at multiple careers from Paris to St. Petersburg, London to Prague to Dresden, Amsterdam, Vienna and even Istanbul. He made and lost a couple of fortunes, founded a state lottery, wrote forty-two books, along with plays, philosophical and mathematical treatises, opera libretti, poetry and works on calendars, canon law, and cubic geometry. He translatated Homer’s Iliad into modern Italian, helped introduced the oratorio into French music, was a noted gourmet and practitioner of the cabbala and wrote a five-volume science-fiction novel. Yet when he died in 1798 the event was sufficiently unremarked for the site of his burial to be soon forgotten. — Ian Kelly

]]>http://prema-yoga.com/2012/08/21/happy-radhastami/feed/0Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift | Flickr – Pho…http://prema-yoga.com/2012/08/10/someone-i-loved-once-gave-me-a-box-full-of-darkness-it-took-me-years-to-understand-that-this-too-was-a-gift-flickr-pho/
http://prema-yoga.com/2012/08/10/someone-i-loved-once-gave-me-a-box-full-of-darkness-it-took-me-years-to-understand-that-this-too-was-a-gift-flickr-pho/#commentsFri, 10 Aug 2012 10:06:18 +0000Guy Tetreaulthttp://prema-yoga.com/2012/08/10/someone-i-loved-once-gave-me-a-box-full-of-darkness-it-took-me-years-to-understand-that-this-too-was-a-gift-flickr-pho/

]]>http://prema-yoga.com/2012/07/23/sometimes-india-feels-too-crowded/feed/0No one can eat only salt for all eternityhttp://prema-yoga.com/2012/07/23/no-one-can-eat-only-salt-for-all-eternity/
http://prema-yoga.com/2012/07/23/no-one-can-eat-only-salt-for-all-eternity/#commentsMon, 23 Jul 2012 19:16:00 +0000Guy Tetreaulthttp://prema-yoga.com/2012/07/23/no-one-can-eat-only-salt-for-all-eternity/ Atheist thoughts are like salt: they can help preserve the truth… but no one can eat only salt for all eternity